Day: June 10, 2024

NPR News: 06-10-2024 11PM EDT

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#Armenia withdraws at least 19 military positions along the border with #Azerbaijan, no conclusive info about Azeri withdrawals. Here’s a map based off of open-source information showing new areas recently ceded to Azeri control. Not much official info on Yerevan’s side. https://t.co/qFzadYE4xd pic.twitter.com/zajbtRvJpX

— Nagorno Karabakh Observer (@NKobserver) June 8, 2024

UPDATE –#Russia borderguards now withdrawn from Nerkin Hand village, #Armenia, where they were deployed following the 2020 #NagornoKarabakh war. Also possibly withdrawing from other areas of southern Syunik province now bordering #Azerbaijan.

Source: https://t.co/MGcaJH4MS6 https://t.co/WxKcXad5gH

— Nagorno Karabakh Observer (@NKobserver) June 5, 2024

(NewsNation) — America’s largest Protestant denomination — the Southern Baptist Convention — could decide this week to ban congregations with women pastors during a two-day convention in Indianapolis.

Last year, the SBC Executive Committee made a preliminary move to warn churches allowing female pastors that they could face removal ahead of this year’s official vote. The move received overwhelming support.

Most famously, the convention expelled Saddleback Church in California, founded by famed preacher Rick Warren, author of the best-selling “Purpose Driven Life.” At the denomination’s 2023 convention, Warren appealed for his church to be reinstated, saying, “I am not asking you to agree with our church; I am asking you to act like Southern Baptists.”

Warren was referring to the fact that historically, the 47,000 Southern Baptist congregations have been able to independently determine how they should conduct services or otherwise serve their more than 13 million members. But the SBC can determine which churches are allowed to be affiliated with the convention.

Within weeks of the SBC’s decision to expel Saddleback, another large and influential congregation, Elevation Church in South Carolina, sent a letter withdrawing their SBC affiliation without giving a reason, though it did make clear that the church would continue with Southern Baptist teachings.

Elevation Church, led by Pastor Stephen Furtick, hosts events at which women, including Furtick’s wife Holly, regularly preach. Elevation’s weekly attendance surpassed 26,000 congregants a week, according to the most recent SBC records. Their worship team was also awarded one Grammy, two Billboard Music Awards and seven Dove Awards including worship album of the year in 2023.

The question to be decided during the convention Tuesday and Wednesday will be whether the Bible verses about men’s and women’s roles should be taken as a literal, universal code of conduct or be considered within the context of the era in which they were written.

In 2000, Southern Baptists amended the Baptist Faith and Message, the church’s statement of doctrine, to state that, “while both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor/elder/overseer is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”

The scriptures referenced in the article are in the “Book of 1 Timothy,” which includes this passage attributed to the Apostle Paul:

“A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.” (1 Tim. 2:11-12)

However, Biblical scholars disagree on the Bible’s teachings regarding the question of women’s roles in the church. Proponents of women’s involvement in the pulpit point to another passage attributed to Paul as a counterpoint:

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, there is no male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” — Galatians 3:28

Historian and evangelical author Rick Renner, founder of Oklahoma-based Renner Ministries, says a deeper study about women remaining “quiet” in the churches reveals that the texts do not depict muting or shunning women.

Instead, he argues that up until the time of the writings in the New Testament, women were not allowed in public religious gatherings and were being taught how to conduct themselves in public for the very first time after years of sexism. 

“It was not about speechlessness. It was about women learning not to usurp authority, by manipulating or dominating when serving under a pastor,” Renner said. Paul “wasn’t against women speaking, teaching. He was against them wrongly using their positions. And he would have said the same thing to men.” 

Renner has highlighted powerful women in the book of Romans, including those who served in pastoral and deacon roles in the early church, indicating according to him that the early church was in support of women in leadership roles. 

“The verses that people have misconstrued that say that women are to keep silent in the church, actually meant that women have great liberty,” he said.  

Proponents of the ban say that the Executive Committee must align with being “unapologetically biblical,” the meaning of which is something Southern Baptist Convention conregations, among others, have yet to agree on. 

Some people may want to put their summer vacation plans to the Las Vegas area on hold, after health officials reported that Southern Nevada is experiencing the highest level of mosquito activity in known history, with more than 3,000 mosquitoes testing positive for West Nile virus.

Southern Nevada Health District said in a press release Monday that as of June 6, 91 pools, comprising 3,081 mosquitoes from 16 ZIP codes, have tested positive for the virus. Two pools, comprising 46 mosquitoes from two ZIP codes, have also tested positive for the virus that causes St. Louis encephalitis.

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The health district’s Mosquito Surveillance Program has received an increased number of complaints from residents about mosquito activity, according to the press release. Health officials attributed the rise in reports partly to the increased presence of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in the area—these mosquitoes are aggressive biters during the day and tend to bite people rather than birds. Aedes aegypti have tested positive for West Nile virus for the first time in Clark County, the press release said.

For the past four years, Southern Nevada has had minimal West Nile virus activity, health officials said. Only two human cases of the virus were reported in 2023. In 2019, officials reported 43 confirmed human cases.

Read More: Mosquito-Borne West Nile Virus Soared in 2018, According to CDC Data

Humans can become infected with West Nile virus if they are bitten by a mosquito that is infected with the virus. About one in five people who are infected with West Nile virus will develop symptoms, such as fever, headache, body aches, vomiting, diarrhea, or rash, according to the press release. In some cases—about one in 150 people—those who are infected with West Nile virus can develop a more serious, or even fatal, illness.

The last time mosquitoes in Clark County tested positive for St. Louis encephalitis virus was in 2019, and there has not been a human case since 2016, according to the press release. Like West Nile virus, St. Louis encephalitis virus is spread to humans through the bite of an infected mosquito, and although most people who are infected will not develop symptoms, some could develop fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, and fatigue. Some people could develop a neuroinvasive form of the disease that causes either encephalitis, which is inflammation of the brain, or meningitis, which is inflammation of the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord, according to the press release.

Health officials encouraged the public to take preventive steps to protect themselves from mosquito-borne illnesses, including getting rid of standing water, which can be a breeding source for mosquitoes, as well as using insect repellent to prevent mosquito bites.

Постоянный представитель РФ при ООН сравнил документ с «котом в мешке».

Военнослужащие выбили Вооруженные силы Украины с позиций и заняли практически весь поселок.

Blantyre — Medical workers in Malawi’s public health facilities started a nationwide sit-in strike Monday to push the government to meet their longtime grievances, which include special allowances and improved conditions of service. The strike forced patients in many hospitals to return home without receiving medical care. Strike organizers said some medical workers could treat patients with critical conditions.

In some public health facilities medical workers were seen singing and dancing outside the hospitals.

While some patients like Nelia Banda of the M’bwatalika area returned home without receiving attention.

She said “Medical workers told me that they will not attend to me because they are not working today. They said I should come again on Monday next week. I am pregnant and yesterday I fell because of high blood pressure but I haven’t been assisted here.”

The strike is a result of the failure of negotiations between the medical workers and government authorities on worker demands dating back to February of this year.

The government had told the medical workers that it would increase their allowances and improve their working conditions instead of meeting the 15% salary increase that medical workers were demanding.    

The increase was meant for risk allowance, top-up allowance and professional allowance. Put simply, this is income that medical workers receive for working overtime or for performing duties outside their normal schedule.

Daniel Nasimba is the general secretary for the Physician Assistants Union of Malawi (PAUM), one of the organizers of the strike.

He said some staff members at the hospital were allowed to attend to patients with emergencies.

He said, “At least we have people. Every department has someone who can attend to any emergency that can come in. What is happening now is called a sit-in. It’s not a complete shutdown of the health service. We are all at work, nobody is at home.”

Nasimba said the workers will not return to duty fully — until the government honors its promise.

However, the Malawi government has obtained an injunction stopping the strike.

Organizers of the strike, the National Organization of Nurses and Midwives and the Physician Assistants Union of Malawi, said in a statement released Monday evening that they were consulting their legal team about the matter. 

Covid cases in Hawaii are on the rise, take these precautions  KHON2

Некоторые страны, которые будут участвовать в «мирной конференции», поддерживают дружественные отношения с Россией.